Other items in this column include:
*Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School gala
*Jewish American Heritage Month
*Salute to first responders
*Recommended reading
SAN DIEGO — Many readers of San Diego Jewish World will recognize the name of Laurie Baron, Ph.D, as that of our columnist who writes satires in his own name and in that of the name of his dog, Elona, and who also compiles for us lists of Jewish movies and other material available on various streaming sources. An archive of his articles may be accessed via this link.
However, he also is known in the academic world as a distinguished historian of modern European history. Now retired as a professor of history at San Diego State University, and better known from there as Prof. Lawrence Baron, he is the former chair of the Lipinsky Institute for Judaic Studies, and was the founder of the Western Jewish Studies Association. He is noted for his expertise in modern European history, particularly the Holocaust, and has written numerous articles and books. One book, Projecting the Holocaust into the Present, was a comprehensive study of how the Nazis’ war on the Jews has been treated by movie makers in the decades since the end of World War II.
It was as Lawrence Baron, the distinguished history professor, rather than as Laurie Baron, the brilliant satirist, for whom women and some men gathered for a Zoom presentation on Tuesday sponsored by Tifereth Israel Synagogue’s Sisterhood. They asked him to evaluate the factors that led some non-Jews during the time of Hitler to risk their lives and those of their families to protect Jews from the genocide. Who, indeed, were the people who have become known in history as “The Righteous Gentiles”?
Baron told of his work in the 1980s interviewing 400 people who had been classified by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial and Museum, as “Righteous Gentiles” in an attempt to understand their motivations and backgrounds for a collaborative book titled The Altruistic Personality. To date, Yad Vashem has identified 28,000 Righteous Gentiles, but officials there believe the number could be as much as ten times higher.
Approximately 20 percent of the interviewees for The Altruistic Personality simply could not be classified; they fell into no recognizable category, Baron told the Sisterhood. But among the other 80 percent of the group, Baron and colleagues found three recurring types: the autonomous rescuers, empathetic rescuers, and rescuers who belonged to religious or political networks.
The autonomous rescuers, he said, were people who had a strong sense of self, a belief in their ability to make the right decisions, and who had a strong sense of right versus wrong. Accounting for approximately 10 percent of the Righteous Gentiles, people in this group had been the subject of a unique style of child rearing, in which their parents accorded them respect and leeway, with very little physical discipline. Unlike non-rescuers who also were interviewed as part of this study, the autonomous rescuers had a very low incidence of being abused as children.
The empathetic rescuers, according to Baron, fell into two sub-groups. There were those who had friends, neighbors, or even distant family members through intermarriage, to whom they felt close. Rescuing these people who were within their personal orbit often could have a snowballing effect, as they also tried to help the children and other family members of these associates. The other group who felt empathetic toward the Jews were people who felt that they too, though not Jewish, had been marginalized in their lives. Together, these two groups accounted for approximately 20 percent of the rescuers.
The largest group of Righteous Gentiles, accounting for approximately 50 percent of the sample, were people who belonged to political or religious networks. These often were people who from an early age had been involved in protests with their parents as members of socialist or communist political parties, and who themselves were often subjected to persecution. More often they were people with strong religious values, Calvinists who took to heart the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 11 that God had not forsaken the Jewish people, that he himself was an Israelite “of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.”
Although these two sub-groups might philosophically disagree with each other, the fact that they had their own networks of like-minded believers enabled them to turn to people whom they could trust when hiding and feeding Jews, or taking on the responsibility of raising Jewish children as their own.
During his presentation, Baron played video clips of two rescuers: Marion Pritchard of the Netherlands and Irene Gut Opdyke of Poland.
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Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School gala
*During the time of the coronavirus pandemic, normal Jewish communal galas with cocktail receptions, sit-down dinners, speakers, videos, awards, raffles, and the like have had to be cancelled. In their place, some organizations have been scheduling “virtual galas,” conducted on line, with the help of sponsors. Such is the case for Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, which has scheduled a free online event at 5 p.m., June 7, to celebrate the 57th anniversary of its founding. Co-chairs are listed as Debbie & Sol Kempinski. Underwriters include such community members as Geoffrey & Carla Berg; Jeremy & Joan Berg, Jeremy & Hilda Cohen, Dr. Arthur Cummins; Jackie & Bernie Dimont, Moises & Jennifer Eisenberg, Dr. Daniel & Emily Einhorn, Michael &Leah Golembesky; Selwyn & Hilary Isakow; Brian Keating & Sara Price-Keating; Monica Handler-Penner & Ami Gires; Robert & Alison Price; Rick & Yvonne Venger; Dr. Gidon & Marilyn Williams, and Bertie & Jackie Woolf. Corporate sponsors include CalPrivate Bank, City of Hope, North Island Credit Union and Raphael’s Party Rentals. One may register for the gala via this website.
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Jewish American Heritage Month
*As the United States officially recognizes Jewish American heritage each May, so too does the Orthodox Chamber of Commerce want to draw attention to Jewish appreciation of the United States. In particular, it has been drawing attention to presidential portraits created by the late Holocaust survivor Morris Katz, who rendered portraits of every president from George Washington to George H. W. Bush. The gallery of his work may be accessed via this link.
*Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) continued its celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month on Wednesday, with a profile of the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, whose book about the Holocaust, Night, remains an international best seller.
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Salute to first responders
In a Zoom cast organized by the Secure Community Network, an arm of the Jewish Federations of North America, comedian Billy Crystal, FBI director Christopher Wray, and Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, who heads an organization of police chiefs of major U.S. and Canadian cities, paid tribute to law enforcement officers, fire fighters, EMT workers, other health care professionals, and those in essential jobs who continue to work during the coronavirus pandemic.
Crystal noted that when something goes wrong, law enforcement officers “can’t socially distance themselves.” And when there are emergencies, “firefighters can’t answer a call on Zoom.” They and other front line workers “never should be taken for granted,” said Crystal, who later raised a kiddush cup he was given in 1961 for his bar mitzvah, and along with others watching the webcast, wished the first responders a l’chaim!
Before delivering his serious remarks, Crystal, a movie star and nine-time host of the Oscars, couldn’t resist a little shtick. He said that he came from a “very Reform” Jewish family which meant that they paid retail and their seders lasted 10 minutes. Noting the advice that if we see something suspicious, we should report it, he said we should be suspicious if we see a roll of pristine toilet paper just sitting on a curb, or if we should happen to see Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President Trump, anywhere near a microphone.
Wray, in a pre-taped video, said the men and women of the FBI, as well as of state and local law enforcement agencies, have “placed caring for our community above yourselves.” He added that he has “never been more proud of the work of our 37,000 employees” at the FBI.
“Criminals don’t let up, not even for a pandemic,” Wray cautioned. he said in the last few months the FBI has deal with cases involving scams and the selling of false drugs for coronavirus protection; terrorism in Kansas City, involving people who intended to leave a car bomb at a hospital, and various hate crimes. He said the FBI would not let its guard down, no matter what the circumstances, and ended his address with the phrase “L’chaim!” which means to life.
Acevedo said during the pandemic “hate is alive and well.” For example, he said, Zoom conferences are sometimes interrupted by hackers with hate messages. He took note of anti-Semitism, saying that he had a “great uncle Billy,” who had survived a concentration camp.
Michael Masters, CEO of the Secure Community Network, moderated the conference. Julie Platt, the organization’s fundraising chair, said threats to the Jewish community have been common during the pandemic, with some haters trying to find ways to blame Covid-19 on the Jews. Amy Korenvais, a board member of the organization, said to the first responders, “Thank you for yesterday, today, and safely delivering us to tomorrow.”
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Recommended reading
*The San Diego Union-Tribune had two stories detailing community response to incidents in Santee of one man wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood and a man and woman wearing masks with swastika symbols as they shopped for food. Charles T. Clark writes about the County Board of Supervisors voting to resuscitate its County Human Relations Commission. Karen Pearlman tells us that the City Council of Santee voted to expand its Community Oriented Policing Committee from 17 to 21 members, with a representative of the Anti-Defamation League under consideration for one of the spots.
*The campaign to remove swastikas from the tombstones of German prisoners of war buried in Texas and Utah picks up steam, reports The Washington Times.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com